The Bar On The Edge Of Probability
by Technohazard
Summary: See where the villains go after they die! beer, hash, baby Marlboros... for an alternative view, see Anguipes Seraph


Author's note: a regular frequenter of this page may have noticed a similar setting in a story by Anguipes Seraph. The only explaination is that there is a whole street of pubs, and that the villains ore on the pub-crawl of eternity. We aren't rivals, we aren't the same person. We aren't clones of each other, both injected with Jenova cells. So all you conspiracy theorists out there can get lost.  
  
The Bar on the Edge of Probability  
  
It was the place they thought could never exist, or at least which they thought would be blown up in a few hours, but it was still standing.  
  
Midori stood back after polishing the bar top down one last time before the bar opened, and quickly reached down under the polished mahogany counter to check that her weapon was still there. As the landlady of the Bar on the Edge of Probability, where the dead and defeated Final Fantasy villains hung out, she had chosen a weapon slightly removed from the traditional peacekeeper. Not many bartenders carried a baby Marlboro. She sat it on the back counter and watched it run amongst the optics, gleefully swallowing the salted peanuts she threw to it. She picked up a can of Raptor from the back of the counter. It was her last one, saved up for an occasion such as this, when the bar was empty, in that momentary calm between opening time and the first customer arrived. She admired the smooth metallic surface of the can, curving away into the infinite, a cycle of red and silver with the bold black logo on one side. Admiring the can was one thing, drinking it was another thing altogether, her mouth was already watering at the thought of the sharp, chemical taste of the energy drink, and the concentrated taurine/caffeine hit of the barely legal beverage. She clicked one claw- like nail under the fragile ringpull and pulled it back slowly. A shot of Blizzaga took the can clean out of her hand and shattered it against the mirror behind her. She heard soft, gently mocking laughter from the door, and turned in anger to see who had disturbed the contemplation which was hers by rights, ready to Ultima him into the next life.  
  
He was a tall, good looking young man, with flowing silver hair and a black trenchcoat which hung seductively over his bare chest, and brushed the floor behind him. Whose first appearance at the bar had made Middy go weak at the knees and who still could. Sephiroth, the one winged angel.  
  
Still as beautiful as the day over three years ago when he had first arrived in Probability, Sephiroth had nonetheless changed. She smiled as she saw him, and her anger dissolved. The two had become firm friends since he had first arrived, a tattered, bloodstained figure, with a sharp sword and a severe attitude problem, which almost matched the cynical bartender's own. After a few free Raptors and a reefer from Kefka's personal stash, for "Being a good sport and not caring that he and his Mother and Father were all killed by a cheap clone of himself." He seemed mellow enough to slump down into a barstool and begin the serious business of drinking away his sorrows. After a few weeks he collapsed onto the counter, next to a comatose Kefka and Exdeath, who had been there since the bar first opened, a few millennia ago. Since then he had become more friendly, when he was persuaded that killing Middy was a sure-fire ticket to never seeing another can of Raptor or shot of whiskey again.  
  
He sat down, smiling hugely, and said;  
  
"Get us a pint, and get one for yourself while you're at it!" even by Sephy standards, he was unusually cheerful. Middy smiled back, unable to stop herself. Who could look at him when he was this happy and not smile? She poured him a generous pint, and pushed it across the counter.  
  
"I'll decline the one for myself," she purred, "you know I don't touch the stuff." Which was true. Strange as it may seem, the fiery-tempered owner of Probability never actually drank herself, her only vice being the lethal energy drink Raptor, which appeared to have all the reviving properties of a Mega-Phoenix with the kick of a Flare.  
  
As Sephiroth tried to strike up a conversation with Kefka, who now hadn't moved from his stool, or even regained consciousness for almost 400 years, another customer blasted in. She was alone, she was ragged and she was angry.  
  
The scarlet-clad figure blasted the glass doors open with a bolt of energy, and fell into a barstool as far away from the other drinkers as she could. There was a flicker in time, and she had a shot glass in her hand, and another fourteen lying around her, most of them in pieces.  
  
"Hey!" called Middy angrily, pointing to a sign behind the bar with one claw. It read;  
  
"No weapons. No magic. No Summons. No Time Compression. By Order." The woman, Ultimecia, shot her a withering look, and another time flicker landed another set of shot glasses around her. Middy pointed to the sign again, and dragged Demonshock out of his kennel under the bar. He drew in a breath to flame, but Midori stopped him. Any flames around Ultimecia, who now radiated alcohol like a solid force would probably cause Probability to finally give in to the statisticians and explode. Sephiroth clicked his fingers, causing Middy to look over to him from where she had currently been watching the gloomy Sorceress getting progressively drunker. He nodded in the general direction of the Sorceress, lifted the unconscious Kefka's head out of his lap, where it had fallen off the bar, smearing cheap clown make-up all over his tight leather pants. He tried to brush it off hurriedly but failed miserably, only making it look much, much worse. The off-white paint was already beginning to congeal. He then went back to his original task, wandering over and sitting down next to Ultimecia.  
  
"New here?" he asked gently, taking the shot glass out of her hand. She nodded, calmed momentarily, then looked up at him. He had never seen anyone look so insane, and he had seen Kefka.  
  
A few seconds later in which, had he been a character in a sickly-sweet romance, he would have comforted Ultimecia and fallen in love, thus fulfilling his one true dream. What actually happened was a bit of a blur, even to Midori who could short-change people with blinding speed and sleight of hand. What appeared to have happened was that Sephy had put his arm around Ultimecia's shoulders, in a weak attempt at following the sickly- sweet plotline, and had it almost torn off, then been hit with a jolt of Thundaga, which sent him halfway across the room. Ultimecia had barely moved. She looked around towards him, and hissed.  
  
"Kurse you!" she said "Kurse all of you damnable SeeDs!" before falling head-first onto the table. Sephiroth looked at Middy, obviously puzzled. She shrugged.  
  
"After your time, Sephy" she explained. He nodded slowly.  
  
"Another rip off of me, I suppose. I mean, look at her hair for Jenova's sake!" Middy looked over, and indeed, she had long flowing silver hair, just like Sephy's.  
  
She had lapsed into drunken unconsciousness, so Sephiroth once again put his pint down on the table and walked over to her. He picked up a strand of her hair from the table and looked at it critically, comparing it with his own.  
  
"Fake" he stated. "Grey. Tinted." He flicked out his own hair, which shone and rippled like a silver river in moonlight. Middy grinned.  
  
"The original and always the best!" she quipped. He returned the smile. At this point, Ultimecia decided to get sober. Time snapped forwards a few days, then back again. The glasses vanished. Sephiroth suddenly found himself in a headlock. Ultimecia grabbed his hair and twisted, almost scalping him.  
  
"Its not bloody well dyed, if you must know! Its tinted shampoo!" she yelled furiously.  
  
"Get off me! Let me go! Ow ow ow!" he yelled, trying to twist out of it, and getting a face full of Ultimecia's breasts.  
  
"Mummy!" he squeaked, grinning hugely, "Forget I asked to get away!" Ultimecia growled and let go of his head.  
  
"Letch" she snapped. He grinned hugely again, his face flushed.  
  
"And proud of it!" he giggled.  
  
The doors slammed open again, revealing another silver-haired youth, dressed in a long black coat and… not much else.  
  
"Ah!" said Ultimecia, not hiding her amusement "Ze entertainment. Kongratulations Midori, I have never zeen zuch a fine young man in my life!" The young man growled viciously, and raised his hands to cast,  
  
"Ult…" he began, but he never finished his sentence.  
  
"Meteor!"  
  
"Apokalypse!"  
  
"Finale!"  
  
"Wuh?"  
  
Kefka regained consciousness just long enough to dive behind the counter, as planets, comets, meteors, dragons, unspeakable horrors and one very small Marlboro converged on Kuja.  
  
There was a greasy explosion, and Kuja vanished, although a detailled search of the room produced half a leather thong and an earlobe.  
  
"Oops." said Middy, shocked. She didn't care about Kuja's death, apart from that it meant that she would get less money. At that point the room seemed to blur out of focus, and a figure clad in black drifted in through a wall.  
  
"Here to collect?" Middy asked, already resigned to the answer. Death turned to her, and the two immortals looked at each other, as one professional to another for a few seconds.  
  
"Collect?" he asked, "Collect what?" she indicated the patch of grease on the floor, the remains of Kuja.  
  
"No," he stated, slightly ashamed, "I just came for a pint, and a chat to my old friend Middy." Middy blushed. Not everyone knew Death on first name terms.  
  
"Sure Kuro, its on the house." She poured him a pint and he drank it quickly, in silence.  
  
"So what's up?" she asked casually.  
  
"Nothing" came the reply, "Just there's a war in Spira, I don't think I'm gonna get much free time over the next few days." He produced an hourglass from the recesses of his robe, it was looped and warped, like the glass of an immortal, but there was a clear ending, and a beginning. There was very little sand left in the top bulb.  
  
"One Lady Yunalesca" he mused. "Allegedly immortal, about to learn that she isn't. Poor girl." Middy shrugged.  
  
"Everyone dies someday." She said, indicating the other occupants of the room. Sephiroth gave Death a cheerful little wave. Death nodded to him, then said.  
  
"Also, someone called Seymour, and Yevon. Both evil to the core." Middy smiled,  
  
"Business is looking up. I'd better put out some tables with umbrellas on them." Death grinned, admittedly he didn't have much of an alternative, but this time it looked as if he meant to.  
  
"I suppose I'd better leave you to clean this place up." He said knowingly. "There was a public health inspector on my list." Middy paled, then laughed.  
  
"Nothing wrong with this place, well, nothing that a few Flares won't sort out." Death stood up, raised one hand in salute, then vanished. The room refocussed.  
  
Kuja reappeared from behind a table where he had hidden as the great spells launched at him. he now literally only wore the trenchcoat. One ear was missing and half of his hair had been singed off. Demonshock was clinging to his leg and slowly dissolving him.  
  
"Man that guy creeps me out!" he whined.  
  
"Shut up, man-bitch!" growled Sephiroth.  
  
Kuja looked at him, given courage by the vast quantities of hash he had already consumed before getting there.  
  
"Mummy's boy mummy's boy!" he taunted. Sephiroth stood up suddenly, drawing himself up to his full impressive height. Masamune appeared in his hand. Behind him, Jenova arose from the hellish Pit of the demon-thingies toilets.  
  
"Say that again, man-bitch?" he murmured threateningly. Kuja backed down.  
  
"Sephie-poo!" called a voice behind Sephiroth. He went bright red with embarrassment. He loved his mum, but sometimes she could be a little embarrassing.  
  
He turned around slightly, and she was in front of him, holding a face- flannel in one tentacle. She grabbed hold of him, twirled a corner of the flannel into a spike and shoved it up his nose.  
  
"Keep still!" she scolded, "I have to make sure you've been keeping clean! You know you forget to change your clothes if your mummy isn't around to tell you. Look you've been wearing those same leather trousers for over a century now, and there's a big white stain on the front!" suddenly everyone's attention was once again drawn to the off-white stain, which was smeared all over the crotch of his trousers. It looked terrible. Jenova turned to Ultimecia, and said  
  
"You look like a sensible young girl, can you just try to wipe it off? I would, but I have to hold him still." Behind the bar, Kuja was leaning on Middy in an attempt to not collapse with laughter, and Middy had stuffed a bar towel in her mouth. Sephiroth squirmed, trying to get away, protesting feebly, as Ultimecia said brightly:  
  
"Of course!"  
  
Sephiroth suddenly had an idea. Quickly casting Petrify on Ultimecia (Oh hell, that gleeful evil grin was going to be frozen on her face for all eternity now!) he took advantage of Jenova's shock to struggle free.  
  
"What a nice girl!" chirped Jenova, then "Theres always another way. Waterga!"  
  
Sephiroth stared in disbelief at the huge tidal wave which suddenly loomed over him. It crashed down, taking the stain well off his trousers, but also taking his trousers and coat well off. He stood there, dripping wet, humiliated, and dressed only in his purple boxers, as Jenova leaned over and planted a soppy kiss on his cheek, leaving a trail of slime, before vanishing.  
  
Middy removed the towel from her mouth, and Kuja stood up, staring at the near-naked Sephiroth hungrily.  
  
"Oooooh!" he cooed "Pretty!" Sephiroth shot him a withering look. If looks could kill, Kuja would be frying in his own private circle of hell. Ultimecia unfroze and stared at Sephiroth's boxers. He was starting to feel like a deer in a roomful of wolves. He moved closer to the bar, then vaulted athletically over it, trying to hide behind Middy.  
  
"Help me!" he squealed "They all want to get their hands on my package!" Middy laughed, then snapped her fingers and a new set of clothes appeared. Unfortunately, It was a large, loud Hawaiian-print shirt and khaki shorts. Sephiroth didn't care, and pulled them both on gratefully.  
  
Kuja laughed, apparently forgetting his own predicament. A tutu appeared in the air before him.  
  
"Sorry Kuja!" giggled Middy "It was all I had left!"  
  
After a few minutes, both villains were dressed in their new clothes. Kuja was muttering a curse on all supernatural barmaids, and trying to pick out a wedgie.  
  
Death reappeared in the door, with his arm around a snivelling Seymour's shoulders.  
  
"But I don't wanna die!" wailed Seymour "I wanna live forever!" the three villains looked at each other in despair, then snorted with mirth and chorused:  
  
"Who doesn't?" before falling about laughing,  
  
"Come on Middy!" laughed Sephy "get the poor bugger a drink, and get one for the rest of us too!" Middy obliged, and set down one vodka and coke, one pint, one double whiskey and one "Sugary Violets" a rather girly cocktail of her own creation. Kuja almost instantly spilt the purple drink down his tutu. At this point, Seymour decided to speak, discarding the kindly-offered pint imperiously.  
  
"I am Maester Seymour, I am a High Summoner, and I refuse to spend eternity with these lowlifes!" Ultimecia raised an eyebrow.  
  
"Lowlifes?" she questioned. Seymour didn't seem to catch the venom in her tone, and he continued.  
  
"Yes, lowlifes!" he continued, flapping one hand camply "A mere swordfighter, a comatose clown, a whore and a man in a tutu! I refuse!" Sephiroth growled, this guy wasn't just stuck-up, he was so far up himself he couldn't see daylight.  
  
"Tell me" he said "Do you ever take that stick out of your arse, or are you always like this?" Ultimecia stood up, and joined Sephy.  
  
"And who are you kalling a whore? At least I don't make my Summons wear bondage gear." Kuja was terrified of Seymour, but he was even more afraid of his two companions, so he stood up as well, and said:  
  
"And I don't always wear a tutu!" before sitting back down and hiding behind Midori, who had vaulted the bar to stand with Ultimecia and Sephiroth. When they got angry like this, they seemed to be much more like they were when they were alive. Sephiroth's eyes were glowing, and he held Masamune in one hand. Ultimecia's wings unfolded behind her. Midori had never been alive, but she looked even more feral than usual, Demonshock was sitting on her arm and dripping acid. Seymour looked at them haughtily, raised his head, and attempted to summon Anima. The giant crane, which usually pulled Anima out of the ground, fell through the roof and hit the reinforced floor, uselessly, before vanishing.  
  
"Ahem" he stuttered "I appear to be… umm… experiencing a little technical difficulty." Middy smiled, this was going to be fun.  
  
Demonshock hopped down off her arm and ran towards Seymour. He screamed like a girl and jumped up onto a table.  
  
"Help!" he squealed "Call it off! I hate Marlboros!" Middy looked at him stupidly.  
  
"Just cast fire or something like that on it, it'll go away." Seymour smiled, she didn't realise the power of his magic, did she? He would show them, and get rid of this pesky Marlboro!  
  
"Death" he said, grandly, casting the spell. The minion of Death appeared, took a swing at Demonshock, and bounced off his Reflect.  
  
"Oh bollocks!" moaned Seymour, as the little Death turned to him.  
  
Once the body had been cleared away, the bar returned to its traditional state of calm. Kuja and Ultimecia had started a game of cards, and Sephiroth was once again trying to talk to Kefka.  
  
Death returned, with the news that Yevon and Yunalesca had decided to go to the Farplane instead of to Probability, and now sat at the bar, basking in the near silence of the bar and drinking another free pint. He had brought Middy a case of Raptor, which she had stowed instantly under the bar, apart from one can which she was holding. She inspected the perfect metallic surface of it, admiring the endless cycle of silver and red, then pulled back on the ringpull with one claw. Three bolts of energy converged on the can, but bounced off its Mighty Guard. Kuja, Ultimecia and Sephiroth slumped forward, disappointed, as Middy opened the can and managed finally to drink it. 


End file.
